For the benefit of Mr. Kite

Or at least Cass, who if nothing else, is the world's most polite stalker...;)

Some interesting tidbits from the Life and Times of Emily.

On January 10th, Jules and I got up at an obscenely absurd hour of the morning to drive down to New Jersey via Rte. 80 (mostly) in order to get my interior braces finally off. They'd snapped just before Christmas, which made Christmas and New Years' dinners interesting, and it seemed about time to get them off. No orthodontist up here would take us without first taking several thousand dollars, and our orthodontist down in Jersey was rather cavalier and told my mother on the phone that we could just get some needle-nosed pliers out and rip them off ourselves. But at-home-dentistry didn't seem to be the way to go, for me at least, so live with broken braces I did until that Thursday.

Curiously enough, as we drove to his office through our old home town and old stomping grounds, I found that I was driving like a person might with a rheumy eye. It was as though I was at once seeing the streets I knew well and not seeing anything at all, all through a sort of dense opaquerie. It was like being in a dream. Vaguely this way would bring us to something we ought to be at, non? And so I'd go vaguely that way and end up in a place that looked familiar enough to make me head turn here and there and finally end up at my doctor's...whose waiting room was exactly as it was 17 years ago. Julie told me she felt the 8-year-old need to jump around on the seats like she once did. (I'm told that she behaved admirably while I was being tortured for good money.)

Inside, Dr. Piekarski looked just like he did as well - all macho and meaty forearms and buzzcut and glasses and thick wristwatch and a cockiness that made you want to hit him and trust him all at once. The nurses even wore scrubs that could possibly have been minted in the 80's. I was taken into a room where the good doctor came in and non-chalantly took out a pair of pliers and RIPPED the braces from my teeth, causing much pain. I squeaked, which caused his automatic reaction, saying, "It's gonna be OK, princess. Just relax." I was twelve years old. My doctor was calling me princess.

There was apparently a lot of tartar build-up under the lower braces, which a very wonderful nurse scraped off, using a regular metal pick (ouch) and a water pick (really ouch). What made her wonderful was that she told me everything she was going to do before and while she was doing it, and she realized that one of my teeth was uber-sensitive and so she let me gasp for air before going in to get it all set in small doses. (Yay for nurses!) The thing is, I've no cavities and have always had pretty serviceable teeth, so actually being in pain in the dentist's chair was an unusual activity for me. Being talked through was nice.

Afterwards, Jules and I moseyed over to the Wayne Public Library, which I was pretty sure and was correct was down thataways, and which had been rennovated to be, it looked, smaller. Booooooo. Gone was the second story where all the really goooood fiction was, where Teresa Edgerton's first two novels of her Green Lion Trilogy had been...before I stole them and then paid the library back saying I couldn't find them. My one true crime. Hrm.... We then circled around our old parish (back there somewhere), with its stained-glass window of a the dive-bombing duck in place of the Holy Spirit (booooo to bad stain-glassers!) still intact.

Then, being so close anyway, we stopped over to the Greydanus clan, where Suzanne and all the kiddies were, including my godson who is now seven years old and quite an active little boy! It was neat to see him and his older brother (my parents' godson) wrestling and generally having a good time, while the two girls orbited them and the baby got into everything, and we attempted to converse with Suzanne. Then several hours drive home, with much laughing over when Jules and I on our first day sleep-deprived in Ireland, driving on the wrong side of the road and trying to find our way via unfamiliar highways-and-byways-and-hedgerows to the abandoned house we were going to sleep in kept ourselves awake by shouting out the music to "10,000 Miles." Good times good times.

In celebration of 27 Dresses coming out and James Marsden being my new wunderkind (even if he doesn't know it) - which is to say my Fred from King of Fools (can't you just see it?), Mom and I had a movie night where we watched Interstate 60 with guess-who, followed up by a Woody Allen film (wherein I did not put my fist through the TV screen, although his every stutter tempted me) and then the Marsden parts of Superman II. Girl bonding over pizza and chocolate, while everyone else is out at work or in DC - is there anything better? I thought not.

Bye Bye Birdie continues to go well (barring some *ahem* silly people not making their appointments). Goes up in less than a month. Phew! Spent some time thinking about Wallace's Will - it's weird, I could act it out on the stage the other day - but pinning it down on paper is proving difficult. Also on the creative front, I finally got Sibelius to upload...but now it turns out that my keyboard doesn't really work as a midi device to the computer so I need something with which to write music.... *sigh* All these wires! Sorry for the obscurity...let's just say that creative projects feel at a bit of a standstill.

Of course, one could blame the beginning of school taking up time! ;P Had my first day back on Wednesday. Drama as Education II first, which was nice - familiar faces! The professor met me on the common as I walked from the garage, which was an even nicer way to begin the new semester. I asked him if there were any standard curricula (sp?) that we could look at, pull apart, etc. for when we create our own, but his answer boiled down to: "Every theatre curriculum centers around who you're studying under." Hrm. I can see this making my way into part two of my thesis: the role of the director in the role of the actor (in the role of his life).

That afternoon, I had puppetry with a woman who daunts me very much so. I spent my rebellious teenage years refusing to be domestic - so that consequently I don't know how to sew or do fine needlework or cut from a pattern - and I'm so pigheaded that I've refused to learn ever since. But now it seems that I'll be doing just that. The class is mostly undergrads and all techies - it's like being thrown in among serious engineering students armed with a couple lines of damp poetry. Fortunately, there are two grad students also in it, one the fabulous Brenda who assures me that she'll help me learn how to sew on a button. Mom will be so proud. Jules will lord it over me for weeks. It's bad enough that she has me crocheting. If I'm not careful, I'll be quilting soon. (Actually, I need a new quilt.) Nesting! Nesting! What the...?!??!?!

On Monday night, I'll have my directing I class. Sooooooooooo psyched. I just want to get in there and direct and direct and play and goof about and sculpt moments and aaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! Gimme gimme gimme! "Back back back! Down down down! Mine mine mine!" As Daffy Duck once said. I'm glad of the books (mostly source documents) that we're reading. Although I didn't get my Grotowski. What the? And I was confused why we were reading the Stanislavski system and not his actual books. Eh. C'est ca. I've got them at home. At least An Actor Prepares. I think I may kick the Artaud book around the room, though. He makes me a little furious. Good old Peter Brooke is on the list. Another excuse to read The Empty Space? I'm soooooooooooo there. No idea what I'll do for my scene. I was poking about the limited theatre section of Borders the other day (Jules was at the other end of the store looking at artwork, natch), but I was reminded of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. Possibilities!

That's really rather it for now. I think I'll go off and argue with Sibelius a little more about how to write music. Ah the joy!

Mood: Comme si, comme ca. Glad for morning joys with friends.
Music: "Wait" off of Sweeney Todd.
Thought: My toes and fingers are really cold.

This morning

As I trudged unwillingly upstairs to the kitchen at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. in order, like a good child, to drive my brother to school and thinking about some order of business I had to resolve regarding the music for Bye, Bye Birdie and going through my week's schedule of voice lessons, music rehearsals and time to compose opera...

...I realized that I'm currently making my living off of music. I'm a frakking musician. (Or, as Bach might say, a fugue-ing musician! Ah ha ha, the jokes.) I'm a working musician. I'm being paid to be a pianist. As Strong Bad might say: "Whatthe...gurputhpt?...afrt!...huh?"

This comes in the week that Julie is spending as a professional artist. And this afternoon, after rehearsal, I was asked if I'd consider directing one of the one-acts for HHS in a few months. Naturally, I said yes.

So...how weird. I guess we really are musicians. (And directors. And editors. And....)

Mood: Perplexed but bemused.
Music: My latest CD which is either "Time of Your Life" or "Carry On My Wayward Son" or something akin to that.
Happiness is: A G&D DVD available Friday.

I have found the missing link!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! I've been beating my brains (metaphorically, of course) against the piano of the mind to find out what happens next in Snow Queen after "In My Garden" (Gerta's Act I version). And tonight, after watching the meh-ish Persuasion, I doodle around on the piano and WHAM! 11 p.m. strikes an WHOOSH! Inspiration!

Alleluia! And it is lush and it is romantic and it is counterpointed and it is well-rhymed and it is yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Mood: PSYCHED!
Music: Cranial Kay's music!
Thought: If I had my druthers, I'd be just playing and playing the piano right now. Stupid midnight.

Look at the time!

Or rather, don't. So, yeah, I know it's the Lord's Day but I was feeling all unproductive and so I thought, "Well, I'll just edit the next scene (Sue Me) from G&D and then call it a night." Only, of course, it was so close to the end, that I kept saying, "Well, I can just do this scene (Sit Down) and this scene (Marry the Man Today) and well I'm already here (Finale) so I think I'll just finish(Bows)." Good golly. So, yay, now just for extras! Huzzah!

Anywho...so I saw Jekyll and Hyde today on YouTube, which has been wunderschoene for uploading musicals, such as selections from the original Sweeney Todd as well as the (I think) far superior concert version with Patty LuPone as Mrs. Lovett.

Of the first, J&H, I found myself giggling uncontrollably. And I realized it was a combination of three atrocious things (in no particular order):

1) The Score: It's simply trying too hard to be the new Les Miserables and it isn't yet The Scarlet Pimpernel. The music is just TOOOOOO over-the-top. Not one bit of it rests, or allows for comedy - or, heck, even a metzo-piano! Everything is so gosh-darned serious from the get-go. It's like the play's trying to be one long climax - but it just ends up being silly. Also, the lyrics are often painful. I tried to forgive them, I tried, I tried, because I know I'm not the world's best lyricist, but seriously it sounds like the guy sat down with a rhyming dictionary and felt determined to use every single bloody rhyme listed in whatever stanza he was writing. They actually rhyme "pain" and "insane" - which I really had been put to rest by Goth Freshmen Girls. Boooooo.

2) The Casting: I think if Jekyll/Hyde weren't the "I'm-trying-REALLY-hard-to-ACT!" Hasselhoff, it might have been more salvageable. But his random American accent next to British ones, his overacting unhelped by the role, his - let's face it - ginormous barrel-chested body is better suited for Gaston than for a mild-mannered man who turns bad. And he isn't helped by a mealy mouthed soprano for a plot-point fiancee and dour-faced chorus members. When the second-banana prostitute is upstaging everyone, you know you're in trouble.

3) The Director: First, the casting would have been solved had the director cared to solve it. Half his problems would have been gone. (Example: the upstaging prostitute almost made me forget her horrible lyrics and flailing dramatics.) The other half of his problems, i.e., the score, he could have at least alleviated by not asking his actors to sing everything at the top of their lungs. He might have had a hand in allowing the (surely) frustrated choreographer to do more with the actors than have them either reprise the hunched movements from "At the End of the Day" from Les Mis or random hands-in-air a la every and any community theatre. He might, in fact, have had a vision worth seeing. (He might also have demanded rewrites....)

Oh, it was bad. It's just bad bad bad. But much fun to watch and laugh at and enjoy (and mourn) those bits that do work, and try not to be thrown by the Scarlet Pimpernel notes that make their way incessantly into the second act. Let this play serve as a warning of how not to write a musical. Sigh. Perhaps I'll tackle a version one day. After all, there've been several Phantoms out....

As it is, my brain is fried, I've got a day full of practicing Birdie songs, voice lesson and then fun with Jills planned, so perhaps sleep might be on the calendar, non? Because if the wild Emily does not sleep, she looks like this:



Mood: Smug. Two birds. One stone.
Music: Mental Snow Queen ("Philosophy Song") - can't shake it, don't want to just yet. It's still percolating....
Thought: It's gooooooooooood to be closer to done.

What to get the girl who doesn't like coffee

Being a silly dyfersion, wyth no particular meaning excypt mine own eddyfication

I don't like coffee, Sam-I-Am
I do not like it, like certain eggs-and-ham
I do not like it plain and black
I do not like it with sugar packs
I do not like it with milk or cream
The flavour's enough to make me scream
Expresso makes me jittery
And lattes seem too frittery
Even a taste, I say, "No siree!
I'd rather be English! Give me tea!"

The tea I'd have is black and good
Some milk and honey, and some sugar should
Make the Earl Grey better still -
Leave the pot with endless refills!
Give me a pot, it hits the spot
A pad and pen, some time and then
I'll sip and write and think a bit
Better than your roast-blended wit.

Mood: And now, alas, to getting the place together for lessons
Music: Mental "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd. Mental and not aural only because I wore my iPod out listening to the song on repeat whilst writing in the cafe. Oh, how very Bohemian of me!
Thought: Yes, I should like to play Mrs. Lovett. Can I direct at the same time, too?

New Year, New Not-Quite Resolutions

I won't say full resolutions, because like most everyone else in the world, I'm awful at them. But some possible goals:

Get better at communicating. Esp. with friends not in MA! (If you are one of said friends, mea culpe!)

Work more on Snow Queen. Actually write down the music. (If all goes well, I'd actually like to submit it Fall 2008 semester for this new works contest at Emerson. Who knows if it'll win, but it's a deadline.)

Finish Tamerin and Isllel. And get a publisher for it.

But most importantly, I hope to really, really, really be faithful to saying my Magnificat morning (and sometimes evening) prayers each day. I'd like to find a community of Catholic young adults out here who are not a ministry but a community. I'd like to grow closer to Christ, and to learn how to do so in a secular environment. I hope, too, to be better (or braver) at discerning my vocation to the consecrated life.

Anywho...we'll see! God's always funny, isn't He, about where He sends us in such a brief time from here to there. Last year at this time, I had no idea that a date had been set which would be the last I would ever step foot in HCH (a date, that is, that was not the one I had thought it would be). Cardinal Newman once reflected that once a year we pass through the day which will become the anniversary of our death. This is not meant to be morbid, but rather to be a reminder of our mortality and why we are here and what we are meant to do here and to really embrace the time we are given and not to squander it.

Which, ironically, leads me to another not-quite resolution I hope for, which is to know how to better relax and not fill time (nor to waste it) but rather to savour it. We'll see.

Happy and blessed New Year!

Mood: Reflective
Mood: Appropriately, "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap off of my Romeo and Juliet mix
Thought: It was snowing today - the clumpy, snowball-throwy sort of snow. Quite lovely and a good sign, I think (or one that I will claim, anyway) of what God intends for this New Year?
Thought Redux: So Father Jonathan gave this wonderful homily on Sunday that reminded me about offering suffering up. And it was wonderful, and much needed, to be reminded that suffering is not nothing, nor to be avoided or cursed or depressive, but rather is an opportunity to win salvation for we below and to unite ourselves more closely to Christ. It is a moment of possible grace, and I'm only ashamed at how much I did not think to offer it up this past year when there was so much. I hope, I pray, that this year I remember better to unite my sufferings with Christ on the cross. Oh, but the memory is a fickle thing!